Wildlife

Boaters beware: State checking for zebra mussels

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(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Boaters beware: Beginning this weekend, officials will be out in force trying to prevent the spread of invasive zebra mussels from Lake Mille Lacs, Prior Lake in Scott County and Rice Lake near Brainerd. The Department of Natural Resources is teaming up with other law enforcement agencies, including sheriffs’ departments, the State Patrol and tribal authorities, starting Memorial Day Weekend to check boats at those heavily used lakes. DNR conservation officers, watercraft inspectors and creel census clerks will be checking boats and informing boaters to inspect, remove and drain water from bait buckets, live wells and boats before leaving water accesses. Violators face up to $500 fines. More

Air

U.S. to Offer New Mileage and Emission Standards

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(NY) The New York Times – The Obama administration will issue new national requirements for the emissions and mileage of cars and light trucks in an effort to end a long-running conflict among the states, the federal government and auto manufacturers, industry officials said Monday. President Obama will announce as early as Tuesday that he will combine California’s tough new auto-emissions rules with the existing corporate average fuel economy standard to create a single new national standard, the officials said. As a result, cars and light trucks sold in the United States will be roughly 30 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016. More

Echo

Lampreys are sucking the life out of Michigan’s waterways

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – It’s spawning season for the sea lamprey, a prehistoric creature that invaded the Great Lakes 80 years ago, and researcher Nick Johnson is injecting a love potion into the river to lure female sea lampreys into traps. The eel-like lampreys are one of the Great Lakes’ most destructive invasive species, devouring native fish by sucking out their innards. They invaded the lakes in the 1920s, wiping out lake trout in some lakes by the 1950s. A chemical developed to kill lampreys has helped lower their numbers to about half a million in the lakes, but it is expensive and there still are too many lampreys. More
 
 
 

Echo

Meeting on lakes spotlights UT’s gains

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OH) The Toledo Blade – To the layman, a conference being held at the University of Toledo this week may appear to be just the latest in a confusing collection of Great Lakes events. But to those who intimately track the science behind the Earth’s largest source of fresh surface water, this week’s International Association of Great Lakes Research conference says a lot about UT’s ambition to become an academic powerhouse for environmental studies. 

It also illustrates how much more value northwest Ohio has started to place on the environment after years of neglect, from more fish and algae research to being reinvigorated – with the university’s help – by solar power and other forms of alternative energy that can help the lakes, officials said. More

Echo

Report Weighs Fallout of Canada’s Oil Sands

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(NY) The New York Times – In the tense debate between energy security and environmental sustainability, Canada’s vast oil sand reserves hold a special place. Canada has the second-largest petroleum deposits after Saudi Arabia and the biggest in the Western hemisphere. Its oil sands produce 1.3 million barrels of oil a day, up from 600,000 a day in 2000. As a result, Canada has become the biggest foreign oil supplier to the United States, accounting for 19 percent of imports in 2008. More

Land

Metro businesses go green with designs

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – Clinton Township lawyer Greg Buss imagines walking out the back door of his office to picnic under the trees along the Clinton River. “I’d like to be able to look out there and see the deer. You do see some fox down there,” said Buss, who practices real estate law from an office about a mile from the planned site of a new eco-friendly office building he plans to build. “It’s pretty cool to do something that’s good for the environment.” More

Echo

Slow ride on restored tracks leads to remote wetland area

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(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge. Together, the twin parcels and nearby rivers represent the most extensive river delta system in the Upper Midwest. But getting into it can be difficult. There are few roads. And with the onset of warm weather, swarms of mosquitoes and the possibility of a chance encounter with the poisonous Mississauga rattlesnake can make a visit less than hospitable. More

Echo

Special week targets emerald ash borer

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(OH) The Toledo Blade -This is “Emerald Ash Borer Awareness Week” – not because public officials want to honor the bug, but because they want to obliterate it. Ohio, Michigan, and other states throughout the Midwest and eastern United States are trying to ramp up the public relations war against the destructive beetle from Asia, which so far has won almost all battles it has waged against the region. More

Climate

The Perfect, the Good, the Planet

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(NY) The New York Times – If we’re going to get real action on climate change any time soon, it will be via some version of legislation proposed by Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey. Their bill would limit greenhouse gases by requiring polluters to receive or buy emission permits, with the number of available permits – the “cap” in “cap and trade” – gradually falling over time. It goes without saying that the usual suspects on the right have denounced Waxman-Markey: global warming isn’t real, emission limits will destroy the economy, yada yada. But the bill also faces opposition from some environmentalists, who are balking at the compromises the sponsors made to gain political support. More

Echo

Changes Proposed to 2010 Air Monitoring Network

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(IN) Muncie Free Press -The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) suggests adding additional monitors to Indiana’s monitoring network to include measuring for lead, PM-2.5, sulfate, and meteorological data. The agency released a draft of the 2010 air quality monitoring plan to the public for comment until June 14th. IDEM is required to review the state’s air monitoring network every year to make sure the agency has monitors in the right locations to get accurate air measurements. The agency also removes or relocates air monitors that no longer give relevant information.More